"I can't promise that there won't be times you should worry. Things go wrong here. Choices get muddied. But so long as you're one of my people I won't ever intentionally bring things down on you. I can't decide if that means I should tell you more or tell you less about whatever I get up to around here, though. If you know nothing you at least have plausible deniability."
He shakes his head and straightens up a little, hands resting on his knees.
"I don't need that from you. For all that we're friends," and he finds that he means it when he says it, which is disorienting and something to think about later, "I'm still a warden, and I want to help you. Staying alive and well is part of that."
He knows this might not be appreciated, but if he asks for honesty he should give it in return.
And with it not being a rule he finds he wants to just be honest.
"But I don't know if this place can help. During that flood, I did things
that...frankly I don't think even I could win in court over. And no one
cares here. Not really. There are plenty of people who would applaud me.
It's not that I feel guilt, because I don't, it's just... This place is ass
backward, Tommy."
"Tell me why," he requests, because he knows (has to believe) that he can help Nux, but Nux isn't Lark. He wonders why Lark thinks the Barge can't help him- if he even thinks he needs the help.
He licks his lower lip and relents. "I haven't done anything outside my nature. I'm not corrupted, I'm just- what I am. And this place doesn't care, anyway. I can do worse than I did at home, and nothing much will happen to me."
"Because it's not about punishment," he points out. "Back home, I can just as easily bribe the coppers so that nothing happens to me. So that I'm not punished by some arbitrary rules. All they care about is that they get paid, and they'll punish someone else for something less."
"Things are pretty arbitrary around here, too." Lark says, but without any aggravation behind it. He's benefiting from the uneven rules, the very thin boundaries. "Some people get away with murder--literally. Other people lose privileges or go to Zero for stepping on the wrong toes."
"I don't believe in either of those things." Lark says softly, thinking of how the only true fairness is rooted in the laws of evolution. "But I do believe there should be some logic. I agree, not everyone needs the same things here, not everyone responds to the same things."
A long pause. He decides he'd rather Tommy hear it from him than from Pietro or Alec, if Alec is even aware. And not so deep down, a part of him wants to hear from Tommy himself about it all.
"I took one of the visitors and I broke him apart and then I killed him. Some--even some wardens--would pat me on the back for it. Which is fine, I obviously believe he deserved what I did, or I wouldn't have done it. I learned a lot from the flood, Tommy, but the biggest lesson is that my methods at home have been too soft. What's funny is that's exactly what happens in prisons back home. They all come out even better criminals."
It's out of the bag, then-- his eyes darken when Lark tells him, and he reaches up to push his hair out of his eyes. It's not a surprise that Lark did something like that, because there is a darkness in Lark that surpasses Tommy's and he knows that he could have come to something like that himself, if his life had gone somewhat different.
"What did it bring you?" It's the only question he can ask, really, while he thinks about whether this is his responsibility, now- and what he should do if it is.
"I don't-" Lark hesitates, scrubs a hand over his face. The torture does not bother him, but his motives do, because they didn't really benefit him.
"There's a boy. Alec." He knows how that sounds, and trusts that Tommy might understand it better than Lark himself does if he just forges on ahead. "I don't know if you heard what Lydecker--his visitor--said about him, but I met Alec a few weeks ago and there was just...something there. Like I needed to either know him, or I needed to hunt him, and I'm still not sure which it is."
But it is a very animal reaction that Lark has. It is very much on the knife's edge between wanting to kill and devour, and wanting to play and protect.
"I took Lydecker so I could understand his weaknesses, in case we ever ran into him again. Just in case Alec hadn't had time at home to find them himself. It was only after, when I was deciding what to do with the body, that I realized all the rest. That it doesn't matter how I killed him or what I did to him before, because if people like Alec, they're going to just be glad someone else did the wet work for them."
He figures it's something like the reaction Lark and Tommy had to each other, between protection and hunting. The scales have tipped, there, but they might still tip the other way-- he'll watch, now, to see where they go with Alec.
"Is that important, to you?" He wants to hear him say it more than anything, but he's wringing his hands in anticipation of the answer.
"That people know you can do the wet work. That people are glad you did something for them."
He's settling, slowly, on a decision not to do much of anything with this. He'll talk to Alec, when he can, but Tommy isn't Lark's warden. His temporary, perhaps- he might have to tell her.
But disciplining someone for this, when Tommy himself isn't so far removed from these actions, it seems hypocritical.
"No. Alec's been avoiding me since he got back, so I'm glad I wasn't doing it for his gratitude. And I'd rather people don't know what I can do--for obvious reasons."
Obvious to someone like Tommy, who understands sleight of hand, who understands that hiding talents and saving them for later is a better bet than flashing them around to try to scare people.
"He's afraid of nonhumans. It makes him more volatile, more abusive, in his desire to bring them to heel like good dogs."
To someone like Lark, that weakness is pure gold. And he can see it carrying over to many other military types, since only a certain type of person is selected for high-ranked positions.
"And he's trained to withstand a hell of a lot but in the end he's just the same as everyone else: when you realize it's a wolf butchering you, it puts things into a new perspective."
He says it with nonchalance, but he looks at Tommy, surprised at himself when he feels a tug of concern. Tommy knows what Lark is. But Lark would have protected Tommy any way necessary during those two weeks they were together; reminding a friend that you kill and eat members of their species sometimes is not necessarily wise.
(In Lark's defense: he hasn't had human friends in a very long time and he's begun to talk to Tommy as if he's another wolf.)
It doesn't bother Tommy- it's something human about Lydecker, something that would probably terrify Tommy just as much, but it's an abstract truth. Yes: Lark is what he is, and it's the reason Tommy was so cautious with him at first.
So he bypasses the second thing entirely, apart from raising an eyebrow- obviously, yes, it puts things in a new perspective.
"What can you do with the knowledge about his fear of nonhumans?"
He clucks his tongue and laces his fingers, demonstrating his theory.
"The military is predictable in my time. The only people who climb the ranks are those who think like Lydecker does. So what I learned about his fears--that he hates not being the strongest creature in the room--can be used against all the versions of him that exist in my world. A good portion of them are going to hate the idea that there are lycanthropes out there capable of tearing people apart. They're going to hate that they don't know how to recognize us."
He looks up at Tommy, reading him, but with a smile that's very much fox-in-the-hen house. "Some of it will be that simple, sure. I'll turn who I can, have at least one spy in there. But a lot of it is going to be psychological, and another part of it is going to be paperwork and bureaucracy. They won't do anything without funding, and what I can't kill, I can always slow down financially."
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"Very well, then. I suppose I'll have to live with it then, eh?"
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He smiles. It fades fast.
"You aren't really worried, are you?"
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"I'm always worried, Lark. If I weren't, I wouldn't be alive."
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"I can't promise that there won't be times you should worry. Things go wrong here. Choices get muddied. But so long as you're one of my people I won't ever intentionally bring things down on you. I can't decide if that means I should tell you more or tell you less about whatever I get up to around here, though. If you know nothing you at least have plausible deniability."
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"I don't need that from you. For all that we're friends," and he finds that he means it when he says it, which is disorienting and something to think about later, "I'm still a warden, and I want to help you. Staying alive and well is part of that."
He knows this might not be appreciated, but if he asks for honesty he should give it in return.
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"I appreciate that."
And with it not being a rule he finds he wants to just be honest.
"But I don't know if this place can help. During that flood, I did things that...frankly I don't think even I could win in court over. And no one cares here. Not really. There are plenty of people who would applaud me. It's not that I feel guilt, because I don't, it's just... This place is ass backward, Tommy."
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A long pause. He decides he'd rather Tommy hear it from him than from Pietro or Alec, if Alec is even aware. And not so deep down, a part of him wants to hear from Tommy himself about it all.
"I took one of the visitors and I broke him apart and then I killed him. Some--even some wardens--would pat me on the back for it. Which is fine, I obviously believe he deserved what I did, or I wouldn't have done it. I learned a lot from the flood, Tommy, but the biggest lesson is that my methods at home have been too soft. What's funny is that's exactly what happens in prisons back home. They all come out even better criminals."
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"What did it bring you?" It's the only question he can ask, really, while he thinks about whether this is his responsibility, now- and what he should do if it is.
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"There's a boy. Alec." He knows how that sounds, and trusts that Tommy might understand it better than Lark himself does if he just forges on ahead. "I don't know if you heard what Lydecker--his visitor--said about him, but I met Alec a few weeks ago and there was just...something there. Like I needed to either know him, or I needed to hunt him, and I'm still not sure which it is."
But it is a very animal reaction that Lark has. It is very much on the knife's edge between wanting to kill and devour, and wanting to play and protect.
"I took Lydecker so I could understand his weaknesses, in case we ever ran into him again. Just in case Alec hadn't had time at home to find them himself. It was only after, when I was deciding what to do with the body, that I realized all the rest. That it doesn't matter how I killed him or what I did to him before, because if people like Alec, they're going to just be glad someone else did the wet work for them."
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"Is that important, to you?" He wants to hear him say it more than anything, but he's wringing his hands in anticipation of the answer.
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He's settling, slowly, on a decision not to do much of anything with this. He'll talk to Alec, when he can, but Tommy isn't Lark's warden. His temporary, perhaps- he might have to tell her.
But disciplining someone for this, when Tommy himself isn't so far removed from these actions, it seems hypocritical.
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Obvious to someone like Tommy, who understands sleight of hand, who understands that hiding talents and saving them for later is a better bet than flashing them around to try to scare people.
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Which is something that Tommy understands very well, too. Knowing what makes one person weak, how to use it against them when they least expect it.
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To someone like Lark, that weakness is pure gold. And he can see it carrying over to many other military types, since only a certain type of person is selected for high-ranked positions.
"And he's trained to withstand a hell of a lot but in the end he's just the same as everyone else: when you realize it's a wolf butchering you, it puts things into a new perspective."
He says it with nonchalance, but he looks at Tommy, surprised at himself when he feels a tug of concern. Tommy knows what Lark is. But Lark would have protected Tommy any way necessary during those two weeks they were together; reminding a friend that you kill and eat members of their species sometimes is not necessarily wise.
(In Lark's defense: he hasn't had human friends in a very long time and he's begun to talk to Tommy as if he's another wolf.)
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So he bypasses the second thing entirely, apart from raising an eyebrow- obviously, yes, it puts things in a new perspective.
"What can you do with the knowledge about his fear of nonhumans?"
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"The military is predictable in my time. The only people who climb the ranks are those who think like Lydecker does. So what I learned about his fears--that he hates not being the strongest creature in the room--can be used against all the versions of him that exist in my world. A good portion of them are going to hate the idea that there are lycanthropes out there capable of tearing people apart. They're going to hate that they don't know how to recognize us."
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He knows this is part of Lark's plans- thanks to Tati. But he'd like to hear Lark say it.
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